14 DAY TRIAL // The operating speed of the system is positively affected by removing unnecessary files, defragmenting the hard disks or tweaking some settings; so every once in a while, computers need a good scrub in order to reclaim performance.
Wise Care 365 is a compilation of various tools designed specifically to optimize systems and boost performance. The bundle is available both free of charge and as a paid product ($29.95 / €17.45), which comes with a set of extra utilities to cover a wider set of improvements.
In the case of both editions, you can create a portable version that can be carried on a removable storage device and deployed on various systems without losing the settings.
Starting the package for the first time takes you through a brief tutorial about the features and advanced settings available. It informs about one-click verification of the system that scans for elements incongruent with increased performance and general settings.
Wise Care 365’s interface has been designed to provide novices an easy way to detect and eliminate the items that slow down the PC. As such, it can run an analysis of the machine and check for useless files, invalid registry entries, optimization settings and activity traces.
There are three main modules present in the main application window, each incorporating tools converging towards the following purposes: cleaning the clutter, tweaking the system and preserving privacy.
There is also PC Checkup, which presents a more automated way to take the grime out of the system as it scans and offers to immediately remove the detected issues.
Scanning does not take too long to complete and at the end of the initial verification, you are provided with a rundown of the findings, complete with the type of issue detected.
You can easily see the amount of useless files present on the system and their type along with the free space claimed after deleting them. A similar report is available for invalid registry entries, activity traces and optimization settings.
Even if Wise Care 365 can be used automatically for cleaning out the clutter, it also offers the possibility to evaluate the entries before dumping them. However, to carry out this task, it appears that a new scan is initiated for each component.
Clearing junk files touches not only on the registry but also on temporary files created by the operating system and as a result of web browsing.
These include invalid shortcuts, memory dump files, thumbnail cache, error report files, system log files, various history lists (Run, recent documents, MRUs) as well as cache, cookies and other data amassed by Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
A more pervasive search can target specific user-defined file types that can be stored anywhere on the hard disk. The package comes with a predefined list of safe to delete extensions, some of them already checked, but you can add your own too; it can scan for them on any volume on the system.
Additional free space can be recovered by removing data that was at one point required by the system. Among these, there are update/patch installation files and data created by Windows installer service.
As far as the update installation items are concerned, opinions about removing them vary, but once all updates and patches have been applied, it is generally safe to eliminate them.
Tweaking the operating system for better performance covers optimizations for accelerating startup and shutdown of the computer, improving overall stability and general working speed.
However, Wise Care 365 can make decisions that change the way the user expects the system to behave. For instance, it may choose to disable autoplay feature or the looks of the dialog boxes and menus, disable the animation effect for maximizing/minimizing a window.
On the other hand, the suite can modify the registry to achieve its purpose. Should you encounter any adverse side-effects, there is the possibility to return to the default system values.
Wise Care 365 showed clear improvements after running the cleaning and system optimization routines. Booting up was faster, as confirmed by the application itself (from 77 seconds to 61).
A third-party tool we used during our tests, which calculates the time to logon and then adds the duration until the desktop becomes ready for work, confirmed the improvement recording a drop of almost 18 seconds, from 74 seconds to 56. Built-in Windows performance diagnostics also agreed.
Further optimization can be done through tools for disk and registry defragmentation and managing startup items.
The default solution in Windows for making files contiguous on the disk is pretty basic, but it does a pretty good job, so the analysis did not uncover high level fragmentation on our test machine.
A section bent on protecting privacy brings to the table a free space wiping utility, a tool for erasing data securely and a password generator.
As soon as accessed, the free space-wiping component starts analyzing all available volumes for deleted items that can be recovered. The algorithms that can be used to sanitize the drives include DoD 522.22-M (3 passes), Bruce Schneier and Peter Guttmann methods that apply 7 overwrites and 35, respectively.
Shredding the data was carried out exactly as we expected and we failed to retrieve any of the files; but with wiping the free space, we noticed that Wise Care 365 may leave information behind.
After destroying the free space for the first time, all subsequent scans rendered the test drive as secure although there were recently removed items that could be easily recovered.
Wise Care 365 is flexible in options and does not require too much computer knowledge to bring your system in an optimized state. It allows the creation of a system restore point (highly recommended) and makes a registry backup automatically.
Moreover, cleaning tasks can be automated by scheduling them to occur with a specific frequency.
The Good
Improvements were noticeable during our tests, especially for startup and shutdown times.
The Bad
Most of the Wise Utilities included in a separate section are not integrated and have to be downloaded and used as stand-alone products.
The Truth
Some of the utilities are no longer as useful as they were back in the day because similar counterparts in the operating system or technological advancements have made them pretty much obsolete.
